Free Royal Harlot by Susan Holloway Scott

Roger.”
    “It’s not,” he said, clearly so miserable that I almost—almost— pitied him. “That is, my father is concerned.”
    “Concerned about me?” I asked, that brittleness still in my voice. “Why should Sir James Palmer concern himself about me, when we’ve never so much as bowed to one another across a street?”
    “Barbara, please,” Roger pleaded. “My father is old, and in weakening health. It’s natural for him to show concern for me as his son.”
    “So this concern of his is for you, and not for me?” I bit into the apple, my teeth piercing the skin and digging deep into the sweet flesh.
    “Father no longer lives in our house in London, you see, but at Dorney Court, near Windsor, in the country and away from the noise of the city, in the care of my mother, a most pious lady,” Roger explained in so much anxious, unwanted detail I could easily guess what was coming next. “He has heard rumors that have, ah, put your name with mine, and he—”
    “He is concerned .” I bit again into the apple, heedless of the sweet juice and flecks of bright skin that sprayed and beaded on my lips. “Sir James is concerned because his only son has been seen with a Villiers. A Villiers . And what, pray, is your country nest of pious Palmers compared to that?”
    Roger began again. “I’m sure the rumors were false, Barbara, yet—”
    “Are you so sure?” I demanded. He was foundering like a man thrown out of his depth in a stormy sea, but I was too angry to offer him any succor or relief. “I thought you knew me well enough, Mr. Palmer, but perhaps you don’t, if you would dare ask me such a question.”
    “I do not ask for myself, Barbara,” he said, humbly bowing his head again, “but for my father’s sake.”
    “You are a man grown, Roger,” I said, biting each word with the same savageness with which I’d bitten the apple. “At least you should be, if you wish to address me. I’ve made my own choices of friends and actions, my decisions, and whether they’ve been wise or not, I’ll make neither apologies nor explanations. Accept me as you find me, Roger, else you’ll not see me again.”
    He looked back down at his own apple, the very picture of dejection. I’d not intended to be so harsh, but his father’s question inflamed me because of what lay behind it. Clearly the old man judged me to be a whore and a slattern because I was Philip’s lover. I’d never hidden that, nor felt shame for it. None of us in our circle who were similarly engaged did. Roger himself had dallied with other ladies, and I’d wager that even this sanctimonious father of his had had his sport when he’d been young, in the days of the old court.
    “Which is it, Roger?” I asked. “If I don’t suit you as I am, then I’ll take myself away from you, and not sully you further.”
    “You’d never sully me, Barbara,” he exclaimed, wounded. “Not a lady so beautiful and delightful as you.”
    “Is that your answer, then?”
    He paused, clearly at war with himself, for which in a small, vengeful way, I was glad. His gaze dipped lower, from my face to my bosom, and I knew at once his decision.
    “Yes,” he said, puffing out his cheeks with the single word. “No more questions.”
    “I am glad.” I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm and smiled, willing to be gracious now that I’d gotten my way. “You will, I think, never regret it.”
     
For as long as the dreary Protectorate had been in power, it seemed his heirs took longer still to bury the Lord Protector himself. The first day allotted for the funeral, over a month after the death, was deemed insufficient, and it was postponed again until the end of November. Roger had cautioned me that these things seldom run swiftly, and how right he’d been.
    Burdened with irony that his followers refused to see, Cromwell was buried with all the pomp and costly ceremony usually reserved for true kings. Those spectators who could recall the